


Grief, Loss, And Doubt

by queercyberpunk



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: F/M, Mass Effect 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-07
Updated: 2014-06-07
Packaged: 2018-02-03 18:04:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1753697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queercyberpunk/pseuds/queercyberpunk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shepard tries to find solace after the loss of Thane Krios.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Grief, Loss, And Doubt

_**I.** AMONKIRA, LORD OF HUNTERS _

The worst of Kaidan's fears about the Commander had been set aside as he resumed his place on the _Normandy_. He tried to ignore the persistent, nagging doubts that afflicted him, twitching in the back of his skull like his intermittent migraines. Yet time and time again, Shepard's words had proven true. The Council had to learn that the hard way, and so did Kaidan. He left the Commander when he should of been by her side as she careened into the Omega 4 relay. He should stood shoulder to shoulder with her as she went barreling into the mouth of the enemy. She went headlong in with nothing but a layer of armor and her gall guarding soft human skin.

He should have been a better man.

He knew this with a crushing clarity that burdened his waking thoughts. He remembered in crystalline detail the curves of Shepard's body, the hard muscles of her abdomen. He remembered the sinking feeling in his heart as her voice crackled through the comm on Virmire. She was coming back for him. Ash was dead because of him--because of _them._ The thought of Ash's body, limp as Vyrnuus' had been on the mess hall floor--sometimes his mind's eye punished him with these images.

The Shepard that left a burning Earth behind was a different woman. She was still Shepard in form: her high cheekbones and proud, jutting nose familiar and attractive as ever. There was something in her eyes though, something that had turned their violent blue gleam dull and flat. Her eyes weren't challenging like they had been as he had hungrily clutched at her naked body, not flashing with hurt and confusion as they did on Horizon. They were something else entirely. He noticed something was different after the attack on the Council.

They were out on a routine mission to restart a fuel depot, clearing out toxic gas and reengaging the systems. They sluiced through the Reaper ranks with marked ease and Vega whistled at Shepard's prowess. "Nice, Lola!" he called. She gave him a small smirk. She still seemed just as sharp, even with the weight of a galaxy resting squarely upon her shoulders. She went through the motions of battle as if her body had been created for it. Kaidan supposed it had, in a way.

"James, go assist Captain Riley and his squad. Kaidan, you stay with me."

"Aye, aye," James said, nodding as he hurried towards Captain Riley's position. The strangled groans of husks filled the depot and Kaidan began to crackle with blue biotic light as he found cover. Shepard crouched beside him, turning her incendiary ammo on. She leaned out of cover and began to pick off the ugly, human-like aberrations.

Through peals of gunfire, he thought he could hear Shepard mumbling something. Her rifle cut through the husks with ease as her mouth moved almost inaudibly. He cast her a sidelong glance before raising a singularity field that sent the husks spinning. "Brute!" she called, sprinting to her left. "You take point, I'll flank." Kaidan nodded. She palmed a grenade, and Kaidan could hear her muffled words a little more clearly. "...lord of hunters--" her words were drowned out by the sonorous bellow of a charging Brute, "--may my aim be true." She hurled the grenade with practiced aim, pieces of the brute blasting apart. It was momentarily shaken, but continued its headlong charge.

"Shepard!" Kaidan called, his assault rifle growing hot in his grasp. The brute was charging towards her, fast and monstrously huge. She dashed, her combat roll sloppy but enough to avoid the creature hurtling towards her. Kaidan focused himself and reaved the brute. His biotic force pummeled into its target and it let out a tortured howl. It collapsed, twisted limbs fruitlessly scuttling for purchase on the metallic floors. Shepard let off a few rounds into the creature's skull and it finally went still. She raised her fingers to her comm and checked on Captain Riley's status. Kaidan stood from cover, puzzled.

"Negative contacts. We just need to restart the fuel reactors and mission complete." She walked towards the main console and began to type rapidly. Kaidan came behind her, slinging his assault rifle across his shoulders.

"What was that?" he asked. Shepard hardly paused in her task, glancing at him from the corner of her eye.

"What? That roll? It was sloppy. I'm pretty sure I broke a finger." She flexed her right hand, mouth twitching in pain.

"No, what you were saying. When the brute attacked you. 'Lord of hunters' or something." She stiffened, keeping her eyes on the console. The beat of silence seemed to drag on.

"Nothing of your concern, Major Alenko." Her voice was cold, almost angry. Kaidan felt the keen sting of her words and faltered with his response. Shepard paused, seeming to realize her sharpness. "A good luck charm." Her voice was quiet now, almost soft but dense with emotion. There was a violent tension coiling in her body, shoulders clenched and the angles of her jaw becoming more pronounced. The console glowed green and beeped approvingly. "Let's get the hell out of here," she said. Kaidan had the good sense not to press her.

_**II.** ARASHU, GODDESS OF MOTHERHOOD AND PROTECTION _

Kaidan could hardly repress his nervousness. He sat in the Presidium, perusing the scorch marks and singed foliage. It was still a beautiful spot on the Citadel, despite being marred by war. He supposed nothing was left unmarked by the reapers. Nothing beautiful was yet untouched by the ruthless indiscretion of war. It reminded him of Eden Prime: the vibrant, verdant landscape made ugly by impaled corpses, destruction, and plumes of billowing black smoke. At least he could still enjoy a decent beer before everything fell apart, he thought. He was on his second beer, hoping that it might create a stable connection between his heart and his mouth. He had so many things that he felt. The image of the reapers descending upon Earth was burnt into his mind's eye. He thought of his family's house charred beyond recognition, his biotic students clutching onto life in the rubble of their previous existence. He had been training them for combat, sure, but not for anything like this. He hadn't prepped them for systematic human obliteration, for overwhelming casualties. He couldn't prepare anyone for the death of their compatriots, or the decision to lay down their own lives. He just hoped that he had done enough.

Yet he had trouble expressing his fears, his doubts, and his mistakes. He had been thinking about Horizon since Shepard had welcomed him back on the _Normandy_ with a small, tentative smile. There was a terse quiet between them, polite and professional. It hurt, but as time trickled by, he felt more and more deserving of that hurt. He had spent some downtime gazing out into space, the stars shining pinpricks in the distance. When he was a kid, he used to dream about space and distant planets. He read books about intrepid captains and their plucky, ragtag crews. He wanted to be a hero, an adventurer.

He was naive when he left for Jump Zero. He was just a kid, ignorant and idealistic, grasping for adventure like he'd read about in the pages of science fiction or watched in the vids. The pain of those years hardened him, shaved away the petty idealisms which encapsulated him.

He had two regrets in his life. One was Vyrnuus; he could still hear the bastard sometimes, telling him he wasn't good enough. He wasn't strong enough. He was pathetic, weak. The other was the mistakes he'd made with Shepard. He loved her. He'd never said it plainly, never knew if she felt the same. He'd brushed her off on Horizon. He still questioned her and her motivations on Mars. He'd made mistakes.

He took a long swig of his beer. He should've thought this through more, waited for a better time. He knew the Commander was struggling. There were purplish creases beneath her blue eyes and faint lines carving themselves into the crevices of her face. She looked older, her shoulders lower. She still fought, but there was no relish in the rattle of her gun. After each impossible task, there was another more impossible one stretched bare before her. He wondered how long she could go on, wading through politics and gunfire with the reapers breathing down her neck. Not long, he decided.

There was no _better_ time. There was hardly a tomorrow, the hope of it dimming as entire systems fell to the reapers. Kaidan embraced fully the fact that he could die in that fading tomorrow. He knew this truth in a primitive part of himself, and it struck panic in his base human self-preservation. He had seen a future once after the fall of Saren: a house on Earth with a yard and trees, a porch where he could watch the sunset. He saw kids, and he saw Shepard's red hair catching the summer sun. Now that future had become a mist, dissipating as it slid through his fingertips. But he was going to be damned if he wasted any more time, added any more regrets to his list. He finished his beer and felt his stomach turn with nerves. His own life was vastly different than the novels he'd poured over as a kid; it was tougher, with pain he'd processed and nights where he felt less than heroic. But now, with the ugly maw of destruction closing itself around the galaxy, was a time for him to take a page from those stories, to be a damn hero.

Shepard sat down across from him, wearing basic civvies and her red hair left loose rather than tied up. "I got your message," she said, crossing her legs and slinging her arm around the back of the chair. "What's up?" They had already discussed Horizon in the hospital, but Kaidan couldn't let go of the feeling that he hadn't said everything yet. He tried to smile at her, but felt it come out as more of a grimace. She looked impassive across from him, blue eyes locked on his features and mouth reposed.

"I figured we could enjoy a good, normal meal for once. What're you drinking?" Shepard raised a brow, and allowed her expression to soften. The corners of her mouth quirked up and she adjusted in her chair.

"A weeping heart," she said.

"That...unusual. Sure you don't just want a beer?"

"Well, I figure if the world is going to hell I can have a martini in the daytime."

Kaidan smiled, almost letting himself believe the false veneer of normalcy. "I'm glad I could get you off the ship. We're overdue for a little shore leave."

"Definitely," she agreed as he ordered the drinks. 

"Look, there was something I wanted to talk to you about. I know we already talked about Horizon in Huerta Memorial, but I think there are some things that need to be said." Shepard straightened in her chair, her body tensing as she awaited his words. Kaidan felt his stomach twist strangely, his fingers drumming on the table in a nervous tic.

"Alright," she said.

"I know about you and that assassin," Kaidan couldn't bring himself to say the name, "and I already told you that I don't blame you for cheating. It's just, I can't shake these feelings for you. I can't stop caring. I don't know if you feel the same, but I want to earn that trust again. I want to be the man I should've been on Horizon." Shepard's face was unreadable. Kaidan's fingers drummed the table with heightened velocity, his heart thrumming in his throat as he waited. "I heard he died," Kaidan said suddenly, the pent up breath rushing from his chest, "the assassin--Thane--I mean. Protecting the councilor. He seemed like a good man." Kaidan regretted the words as soon as they left him. He didn't want to bring this up; he didn't want to remind himself that her heart had been placed elsewhere. She must have been grieving still, he thought, but he had never seen her waver.

"He was," she said. Her voice was throaty and almost inaudible. "I--I'm sorry Kaidan. I'm sorry for what happened and the way things played out. I don't blame you; I could've been an AI or had a Cerberus chip in my head. You made the right decision at the time. I never stopped caring for you, but it got...messy."

"Things always get messy when you're involved, Commander."

She let out a short, breathy laugh, her eyes averting his face to gaze across the Presidium. "Yeah, I guess they do."

"I know this is a bad time, but I don't think it's going to get any better. I still care about you, Shepard. Just tell me: do you think there could ever be an us? Do you still--do you still have feelings for me?" There it was: all his vulnerability at her mercy. He felt as if the weight escaping his body hung heavily in the air about them.

"I care about you, Kaidan. Always have. When I'm staring down the reapers I don't want anyone else by my side. But things are different."

Kaidan's lungs deflated, his mouth sinking into a frown. "I understand."

"No, that's not what I meant, exactly." Shepard shifted in her chair and fumbled for words. "Someone showed me that it's possible to have two loves in a lifetime. I don't think I ever really stopped loving you, Kaidan. Even after Horizon. I'm not going to lie to you, it hurt. But I think we're past that. I think we can--I think we can try." It was a tentative answer, but it was enough to kindle a bloom of warmth in the center of his chest. He reached out for her hand across the table and covered it with his own. Her hands had always been impossibly cold. Bad circulation, she'd said.

"That makes me so happy. I've loved you all along, since Noveria, Feros, Illos..." She looked away, reddish lashes resting against her freckled cheeks. Kaidan thought she looked beautiful, even exhausted with faint scars curving along her cheeks.

"Let's just, go slow, alright? I don't..." She broke off, her hand tensing beneath his.

"Don't what?" She didn't answer. "It's alright, Shepard."

"I don't want to lose you again," she whispered. "I can't lose another person to this war." Kaidan caught her gaze and held it. He was almost taken aback by the sadness churning in her eyes. For a moment, he thought she might cry. But then again, he'd never seen Shepard cry. Not even at Ash's funeral.

"Don't worry," he said, his hand tightening over hers, "it'll take a helluva lot more than reapers to get rid of me."

_**III.** KALAHIRA, GODDESS OF OCEANS AND THE AFTERLIFE _

Kaidan twisted the bottle in his hands. He and Shepard had begun to talk cautiously. She came down to see him in his quarters between missions. She took him along on a good portion of them, but came and filled him in on the ones she didn't. He listened to her fears, her worries, and her doubts. He tried to be her shoulder, because God knew she needed one. She told him some tidbits about growing up on the slums of Earth, about gang life. He talked about his family, his home in Vancouver.

He asked about the Collector mission and Shepard told him about the patchwork crew they had assembled for the suicide run. She told him about the psychotic biotic--Jack--covered head-to-toe in tattoos and with a personality as unpleasant as a hungry varren. Shepard spoke fondly of her profanity and insubordination, grinning as she recounted Jack's hatred for all things Cerberus. There was the beautiful asari, Samara, and her heavy burden of ardat-yakshi daughters. Kaidan could only imagine the pain of that.

The mercenary Zaaed, who for all his gruff impatience and violent temperament, turned out to be a loyal and reliable team member. Jacob, more pragmatic and honorable than he'd imagined any Cerberus operative could be. Then there was her extremely capable, genetically modified XO, Miranda. The brilliant, garrulous Mordin Solus; Shepard grew melancholy when she spoke of the recently deceased doctor. The geth, Legion, with some of Shepard's wayward armor welded on. The master thief, art enthusiast, and book lover Kasumi. It had been a strange assemblage of people, awkwardly pieced together yet they had come out the other side whole. Kaidan had told her that no one else would have been able to hold together such an incompatible group. Shepard had only laughed.

She was still distant towards him, lost in the spinning universe of her own head most of the time. She was constantly waning under political pressure or military orders. Sometimes she came to Kaidan's room and curled herself against him silently. He put a protective arm around her, sparing his warmth and letting her linger in companionable silence. He liked to clasp her cold hands, warm them with his own excessive heat. He had laughed once and said that their temperatures balanced well. She smiled and ran cool fingertips across his bare forearms. They hadn't kissed, hadn't touched in any way aside from chaste comfort. Sometimes he couldn't hide the shockwaves of energy and desire pulsating from his core while she was near. He wanted to be respectful. Garrus had cornered Kaidan, quietly telling him about the death of Thane. He had died before Shepard in Huerta Memorial, and Garrus said she might still be mourning him. He said it was something even Shepard might have trouble moving past.

Kaidan was content to wait. He would be Shepard's strength, her pillar when all else was crumbling. He was conflicted about bringing the bottle of the wine up to her cabin. He didn't want to presume, didn't want to press the issue. But another part of him knew that the war was coming to a climactic end. He wanted to be close to Shepard again, to feel her skin under his and run his fingers through her knots of red hair. He got up and paced, glancing out into the endless void of space. He wondered what had drawn her to Thane. He wondered if they had really been in love; he wondered about all the intimate details he didn't truly want to know. That didn't mean he wasn't consumed by them.

He had tried to go on dates after Shepard's supposed death. No one had been the same; civilians didn't understand a lot of the things Shepard inherently did. He felt almost freakish to normal women; an L2 biotic who could hardly talk about his job because most of it was classified. His dates were clumsy and uncomfortable. The women he met, although intelligent and beautiful, didn't have the capacity to understand him like Shepard did. It hurt him, subtly and quietly, that someone else had spoken to Shepard that way. He selfishly wished he could have found someone in the interim, but he knew it wouldn't have been the same. For him, there was no one else, but not for her. What was it about a drell that possessed her? What did he have that evoked her desire, her love? He knew this line of thinking was toxic, only causing doubt and unanswerable questions. The truth of the matter was that Shepard wanted him now, through everything. He tried to let that comfort the petty voices echoing in the corners of his subconscious.

His grip grew tighter on the bottle of Cabernet. Dammit. He made his way to the elevator, pressing the console and twisting the wine nervously in his grasp. The elevator let out a small ping as he arrived and the doors peeled back. He raised his hand to knock on her door, but paused. He saw that it was already unlocked and decided to just go in. It'd taken him a while to work up his courage, and he didn't want to be turned away. The door opened with a soft _swoosh_. What Kaidan saw made him pause. Shepard was kneeling next to her bed, hands clasped and voice low in something that sounded vaguely like a prayer.

"Amonkira, Lord of Hunters, keep my aim steady and my hand true. Amonkira, imbue me with strength and grant forgiveness should I fail. Arashu, Goddess of Protection, make me unforgiving to my enemies and a tenacious protector to my friends. I ask for your protection in these times of hardship. Grant that I am strong, but also merciful. Shelter those I hold dear, Arashu who guards the children of the universe. Kalahira, whose waves soften the roughest stones, my heart is full of sadness. Kalahira, mistress of inscrutable depths, should I be taken from this world guide me back to him. Forgive my sins and wash away my wickedness; Kalahira, guide me to the pantheon of the eternal shore. My prayer is for him, so that we might meet again across the sea."

Her eyes were closed, forehead balanced against her clasped hands. Kaidan knew he was intruding on something deeply private, but also knew he couldn't leave unnoticed. He had never known Shepard as a spiritual person. Even before some of their most difficult missions, he hadn't ever heard her murmur to God for strength, as so many other marines did. Kaidan was frozen, feeling foolish with his hand curled around the wine bottle. She opened her eyes, stiffening as she saw him standing as a statue in her doorway. "Kaidan," she said, rising from her kneeling position. She averted her eyes from him, focusing on some corner of the room. "I wasn't expecting you."

"I'm sorry," he said, "I didn't realize you..."

"I don't, usually." she said, the awkwardness evident in her voice. "Just...sometimes it gives me a little peace."

"I didn't--" Kaidan tried to choose his words with care, "recognize any of the names."

"They're not human deities. They're drell."

"So the prayer was for him."

Shepard was silent for a time. She turned her back to him and began to straighten her sheets with tremulous hands. "We don't have to talk about this if you don't want."

"No, Shepard," he said, stepping down into her living space and setting down the Cabernet. "I think you need to talk about it. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you haven't talked about him with anyone else, have you?" Her silence was all the confirmation he needed. "I know you're still hurting," he continued. Her back was still to him as she continued to fiddle with the sheets. He stepped closer; he moved slowly, ready to back off at her word. She didn't say anything. "Tell me about him."

Shepard turned to glance at him over her shoulder. Her eyes welled with tears, but she made sure that none of them fell. She wiped at her face with her sleeve and sat on the side of her bed. Kaidan sat beside her, keeping a respectful distance as she composed herself. "You don't want to hear about this, Kaidan." She was right. There was a jealous part of him that wanted to believe she had never found solace in anyone but him. There was an angry part of him that never truly forgave her cheating. But he was not the sum of his parts, and he knew that he loved Shepard irrevocably. He would listen even when it hurt to hear. Even when her words cut him somewhere clandestine.

"Tell me," he said, soft and sincere.

"He..." her hands fiddled nervously. "He was unlike any person I'd met. He was an assassin but also deeply spiritual. He had blood on his hands, but he was trying to atone. I--I have blood on my hands, Kaidan. I have so much that sometimes it scares me. I think of all the people I've personally killed...watched them die down the barrel of a gun. And the hundreds of thousands of batarians, dead because of me."

"That wasn't your fault--" he started.

"It was the reapers, I know," she said, her hands shaking, "but it was me who pressed the button. I was the one who launched that asteroid. I think of all the families, the children who died in that explosion. It haunts me. It haunts me every damned day. I was always so focused on preparing for the reapers, and now that they're here it's like I'm in the eye of the storm."

She took a deep, shuddering breath. "I don't think I'm walking out of this one Kaidan."

"Don't--" She put her hand on his arm, silencing him.

"There isn't much time left for me. For any of us if we don't win this thing. And all I can do now is just reflect, and hope that it's enough. But I'm so afraid. I'm so afraid that the end never justified the means, that I've sacrificed too much. Thane died a good death, defending the salarian councilor. I felt his hand go limp in mine, while his son read a final prayer. A prayer for me.

"I don't know if I'm a good person. I don't know if someone who's caused so much death could ever be. Thane seemed so content in the end. He saw his own death and was at peace with his choices, even the bad ones. I'm--I'm terrified. I never thought much about my soul until now."

"You're a good person, Shepard," Kaidan said steadily.

"I want to believe that," she whispered, "but I don't know. I don't even know what I'm doing, trying to pray." She tried to laugh but it was stunted and thick with grief. "Kolyat, his son, gave me a prayer book after Thane passed. He said that Thane would've wanted me to have it. I thought when I could finally see the end of this war, there would be peace, but all I feel is--all I feel is doubt." Shepard reached out to the bedside table, picking up a small, plainly-bound book. She ran her fingers over the soft material of the cover, eyes agaim brimming with unshed tears. "This is all I have left of him," she choked out.

Kaidan gathered her into his arms, pulling her into the safety of his embrace. She shuddered against him, sobbing quietly into his chest. He stroked her hair as she drained herself of all her suppressed despair. He didn't know what to say, which words would be a balm to her. He wasn't sure if either of them were going to make it out in the end. He had no answers for her, no clairvoyant wisdom to offer. "I'm so sorry," he whispered into her hair. He knew this pain; he had felt it every single day for two years. Some days it was sharp and some days he could push it to the back of his mind. But the pain of it was omnipresent, sometimes leaving him so sick with misery he wasn't sure he'd ever recover.

Shepard untangled herself from his arms, wiping her eyes on the sleeve of her shirt and trying to mitigate her uneven breathing. She still clutched the prayer book, her knuckles almost white. Kaidan placed a hand on top of hers. They were as cold as ever. "Let's read something," he said, "for Thane." She nodded and leaned up, carefully placing her lips atop his own. It was a brief kiss, but pregnant with meaning and significance. It was more than enough.

Shepard thumbed carefully through the careworn pages, her voice raw as she began her prayer.


End file.
